The Sworn Shield
by CloudyDream
Summary: "She is lonely and so he is, but together, they aren't anymore. And he is every bit as frail and bitter as her, but Lyanna deserves it, and he doesn't." They find each other, and together they remain. Jaime/Lyanna, almost canon.


Completely, gloriously unbeta'd. You are more than welcome to point out any of the horrible typos I definitely made.

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**The Sworn Shield**

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**Adagio**

The Soiled Queen, they call her; and Lyanna grins her teeth and pretends she doesn't hear. She just smiles, as prettily as she can, safe in her knowledge that there is no one left around her who knows her well enough to read her lies in her eyes.

Perhaps her life would be better, she muses, if she had someone to share it with.

But Benjen had refused to stay, no matter how pretty the white cloak she offered him , no matter how much she cried and pleaded. _Atonement_, he called it, his exile to the Wall, hoping the black would wash away his sins – _and what about mine?_ Her own penance was as hard as her brother's, in its own way, the golden life she couldn't escape; but no one would ever recognize it as such.

_It would have been better if I'd died_, she finds herself thinking more often than not. Blood would wash away her faults as well as Benjen's oath had; and no one would dare slander her if she were dead. _They would sing of me instead_.

_If I'd died, Ned would have forgiven me_.

But she lived instead, to wither away, never to see her family again; alone but for Robert's arms and Robert's men and Robert's children she cannot bring herself to love.

**Con moto**

She tells him as much once, the one time she walks in her chambers in Maegor's, only to find her royal husband entertaining Delena Florent on her bed. Lyanna doesn't flinch, doesn't have to contain the anger she doesn't fell. She merely clears her throat, loudly, and asks Robert, sweetly, if perhaps he drank too much and entered the wrong room by mistake?

The Florent girl gasps and shudders as if Lyanna had slapped her, and Robert… he looks hurt, Lyanna realizes, as if he was the one wronged, and not her.

_Well, he's right in one thing_, she thinks. She surely doesn't feel wronged – Robert can fuck as many women as he wants if it means he'll stay away from her; but he should have the good grace to be subtle about it. And to stay away from his sworn lords'… maiden daughters.

"Pity," she says, mildly, once the girl is gone. "The bedding's all ruined."

He clenches his jaw ah her words. Old Maester Walys used to say that, sometimes, words could hurt a man as well as a sharp dagger, but she never believed him. _Until it was too late_.

"How can you be so _cold_?" he spits; and he is so clearly not expecting an answer that she gives one.

"But I'd never, Robert," she says, as earnest as the young girl she was when they met. "Not after everything you did for me." _Won me a throne and a war_. And killed a Prince, no matter that she did not ask him for it. "I want to be a good wife," Lyanna tells him; and she can see how much he wants to believe her. For all that he is King, Robert is sometimes as naïve as a child.

_And he wants to be loved_.

"And I want that bed to be brought out of here," she adds, sharply, and Robert flinches.

"As you wish," her husband snaps; and he doesn't look at her as he walks by, making for the door. Lyanna hears heavy steps and snorts and a slam; and, finally, a loud curse.

"Move, Lannister," Robert says; and only there Lyanna turns – and there he is, Jaime Lannister standing by the entrance as Robert leaves; and she realizes for the first time that he was there all along.

And he was, she remembers; thinking back to that morning, retracing her steps in her mind. Robert's white knights are nothing if not discreet, so omnipresent as to be forgettable. Lyanna never pays attention to the Kingsguard, as a rule; not since Benjen turned it down. Robert's men, all of them.

All of them, but the Kingslayer.

Their eyes meet, and he almost looks amused.

"I'll call someone," he offers, cool and casual. "For the bed."

"Just have it brought to Lady Delena, would you?" Lyanna tells him. "With my best wishes. She can keep it."

Ser Jaime laughs at that, and she takes notice. Any other man in the Red Keep would have looked midly scandalized at the suggestion. "That'll be interesting to watch," is his only answer, and Lyanna decides she likes the man.

"It probably would," she says.

**Allargando**

(The next time the see each other, some three or four days later, Lyanna notices; and it is the first time she has really paid attention to a white cloak over the other.

"I had your gift brought to the Lady Delena," he tells her; and Lyanna doesn't know whether to be surprised or amused. Or even guilty, for she knew Robert – and his charms, and his behavior – well enough. Once upon a time she would have felt sorry for the girl; but now she just doesn't care.

"Did you, really?" she asks.

"It _was_ an order, was it?" Ser Jaime says, and for the first time Lyanna understands what the ladies of King's Landing see in him. As self-satisfied as his smile his, he surely is pretty to look at. "Sadly it wasn't as well received as it could have been, but I tried."

"I am sure you did," Lyanna agrees.

**Moderato**

"What is this thing I hear," Robert asks, "about you and the Kingslayer?"

_Varys_, Lyanna thinks.

"He has been telling me of the Westerlands," she says, and Robert frowns.

"Lya," he begins; and oh, how she _hates_ it. Brandon was the one who came up with the name, and Robert had neither the right nor the permission to use it. _Brandon loved me, and I killed him_. "Ned wouldn't want you to spend time with the Kingslayer. Hells,_ I_ am not sure I want you to."

She raises one eyebrow, trying to keep her composure; but it is harder than she would like it to be. It is the first time in more than two years that her husband manages to get a rise out of her, no matter that he's not even trying, and it's… unexpected. _To say the least_.

"Why is that?"

"Lya," he repeats, slowly, as if she were a child. A child to be protected and shielded from the world; a child to be ordered around. "The man killed Aerys. He broke his oath once, who's to say he will not do it again?"

"The fact that his father's army isn't at the doors, for once," Lyanna is surprised at her own answer. "And you are not Aerys."

Robert looks as surprised as she feels, and Lyanna decides she is tired of it all. "Don't be worried," she tells him. "I just like him; he tells the most wonderful stories."

"Of Casterly Rock and his brother Tyrion, and his sister. Do you know that Lady Cersei is coming to court?"

That is enough to distract him; and if Lyanna were a real wife, perhaps she would be annoyed.

As things are, she is only grateful.

**Calando**

Lady Cersei does indeed come to court, because she is beautiful and unwed and still a maid at twenty.

_Or at least she says she is_, Lyanna thinks, rather uncharitably, and wonders if her father even believes it; but, in any case, she knows that Cersei won't remain a maid for long. She gives it a month at the latest, and hopes that at least Robert will be discreet about it.

_And after that, who knows?_ She is too lovely not to be married, certainly more than Lyanna herself; but the war has been over for almost three years now and Lyanna has successfully survived two pregnancies now – _three_, she almost thinks; even though she shouldn't – and even Lord Tywin must have given up the hope to see his daughter become Queen by now. _Perhaps Stannis_, she thinks, and almost feel sorry for the other woman. But then again, had the dragons won Lady Cersei would have been married to Prince Viserys now; and Stannis, for all his fault, was surely better than a boy.

But those thoughts were dangerously close to…to_ Dorne_; and Lyanna doesn't want to, not tonight.

**Tempo primo**

"I suppose you must be happy," Lyanna tells him, "to see your sister, after so long."

Ser Jaime smiles. _He really has the most beautiful smile_, Lyanna thinks, for all that is not a word that should be used for a man. _Beauty can hide so much_, is another thing her old maester used to say. _I loved a beautiful man once, and look at me now_.

"I am," is all he says; and Lyanna feels a fit of jealousy. When was the last time she heard from Ben?

And if she doesn't see Ser Jaime quite as much after that; well, it is to be expected. Lyanna doesn't mind.

She was so lonely for so long, and survived well enough. _Why should things be different, now?_

**Grave**

Lyanna gave it a month but it's done in less a fortnight. She sees it in Cersei's bold walk and loaded gazes, and in Robert's conspicuous absence from her bed. She saw it happening and let it, but Ser Jaime clearly didn't – she knows that because he tells him as much; and Lyanna wonders how they became so close in such a short time.

"I suppose you know," it's how he begins; and she nods. Ser Jaime looks distraught at that, more than she would have expected him to be.

"But why…" he murmurs; and it's not a real questions, so Lyanna keeps her answer to herself.

**Precipitando**

"How can you tolerate it?"

Lyanna merely stares at him. "Ser," she says. "Could I stop it, if I wanted to?"

It is five day since she saw him last, since that day he wandered for the Red Keep looking more like a scorned lover than a concerned brother; and Lyanna realizes how much she missed him.

"You could try," he snaps. "Cersei would."

She doesn't say a thing; keeping her silence until he realizes what he just said.

"Good thing I am not your sister then, Ser," Lyanna says. "What would she do to her husband's mistress, I wonder?"

It hits her then, the sudden realization – _how did we get to this?_ He is a knight of the Kingsguard, after all, and she his Queen; and yet here they are, exchanging confidences as if they were… she doesn't know. _Something_. And Jaime – when did he _become_ Jaime? – surely doesn't accord her the respect due to the king's wife; but Lyanna certainly doesn't mind.

**Prestissimo**

From that day on it's _Jaime_, always Jaime. Jaime who guards her chambers and escorts her when she goes riding; Jaime who stands by her side in court and whispers the most scandalous things about that lord or the other; Jaime who humors her playing that _cyvasse_ game that Thoros of Myr tried to teach Robert once.

Robert seems to think it a good enough idea, his apparently oblivious wife and the kingslayer brother of the woman he's bedding; and he doesn't question it. He seems to think Jaime his sister's accomplice in keeping Lyanna unaware; and seems to welcome the arrangement even when Lady Cersei is officially betrothed to Lord Stannis.

Jaime keeps losing at _cyvasse_ that day, badly.

Lyanna realizes the truth of Jaime Lannister's relationship with his sister that same evening, sometime between the third and the fifth game, bits and pieces coming together all at once.

"Ser," she begins, her gaze trailed on his face. "I thought your Seven gods weren't particularly fond of incest."

The pawn falls from his fingers and hits the board, bringing down two more pieces with it. He's gone deadly pale.

"Jaime," Lyanna says; the first time she called by his name to his face. "I am not… I did not meant to make you worry." And she truly did not. Lyanna Stark was in no position to criticize anyone in matters of the heart.

To his credit, Jaime recovers admirably quickly. "Why telling me, then?" he asks, all of his famed arrogance back in his voice.

Lyanna needs to think about it. "I don't know," she says. "I think I should have figured out sooner."

Jaime shrugs. "I suppose it doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

His laugh is not as bitter as it could have been; and, for that, Lyanna is glad.

**Sostenuto**

Lyanna feigns illness to stay in King's Landing for Lady Cersei's wedding; and Robert and Pycelle alike believe her.

_If there's one good thing to being born a woman this must be it_, she muses, _how easy it is to be underestimated_. Jaime is to remain as well, and Lyanna wonders why. Robert's dislike for the man, or some desire to spurn Lord Tywin, perhaps. She doesn't allow herself to consider that it is something Jaime might have chosen, because it is in his nature to torture himself with what he cannot have.

Someone asks Robert that same question – Lord Arryn, perhaps, but it's not the question she pays attention to. The answer is.

"Let Ser Jaime remain to guard the Queen," Robert says, laughing. "He seems to like that. The Kingslayer, playing Dragonknight."

Someone tells him, of course, because someone always does; and Jaime is oddly sullen that night.

"Dragonknight," he says, playing idly with the hilt of his sword. "I used to think I would be just like him, you know."

"I think my brother thought the same," Lyanna jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

He raises one eyebrow in surprise. "Lord Eddard?"

Lyanna has to laugh, because the thought of Ned as the dragonknight is nothing but hilarious.

"Ben," she says.

_And Brandon_, she thinks; but doesn't say.

**Stringendo**

(She asked about Aerys once, and that was when he told her about Brandon, too; all the ugly truths Rhaegar never dared to speak. Lyanna called him a fool for keeping silent, but she understood his reasons well enough.

That was the first and only time they spoke of Brandon Stark.)

Things are simpler after that.

**Accompagnato**

"I am not him," he says; and there is a vulnerability in his voice Lyanna never heard before. It is enough to make her ignore his words.

"Who?"

"Rhaegar," he answers; and Lyanna feels the world spin all around her.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Ser," she tells him, hoping to sound queenly and impetuous and… not scared.

"I know enough," Jaime says, and Lyanna's eyes meet his.

"Do you?"

"I do," his eyes are green and bright and as honest as he probably gets; and Lyanna decides to trust him.

"Thank you," she says; and his lips twist into something that might almost be a smile.

"But I meant it," Jaime continues. "I am not him."

Lyanna raises one eyebrow at him. "You know, Ser," she tells him. "I hadn't noticed."

**Tenuto**

("I am not her, either."

Jaime laughs.

"Thanks the gods.")

**Vivacissimo**

The first time she kisses him he tastes like sweet golden wine.

Robert is in some other woman's bed, where she likes him the most, and the King's Landing's air is warm on her skin. Jaime just won his fourth game in a row, and Lyanna glares at him with a playfulness she did not know she could still have; and then he was close all of a sudden, too close.

"Is this alright?" Lyanna asks, with an hesitance that surprises her. She is lonely and so he is, but together, they aren't anymore. And he is every bit as frail and bitter as she; but Lyanna deserves it, and he doesn't.

"It's perfectly alright," he says. "What's a dragonknight without a queen to love?"


End file.
